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At last !!! a good technique for all to learn. much better than " The way to handle a bully is to walk away."

Rik ( my son ) was quietly walking home from a night out.

Three yobs were giving some poor girls serious grief, as Rik approached, he politely asked ( he is always polite ) the yobs to leave the girls alone, they then turned on him, as he walked backwards stating those famous words " I don't want any trouble " which of course he knew they would take as weakness, he had his hands in the air as he walked backwards ( for possible CTV ) they attacked him, he knocked two out and the third backed off. They were punching and never made contact. Rik's only injury was a broken hand, which resulted in the cancellation of 3 forthcoming fights..He then walked the young ladies safely home.
So, walking away from bullies can be very dangerous.....

Yeah normally it is enough to knock down one. Packs are oftentimes like that.
I assume Rik is a young man anyway. It takes a bit of time in fact to learn a golden rule that only when you are very very old and decrepit with a ver very long and white beard like mine grazing the floor: never help a lady in distress.

You may get the most heinous injuries for a lady that may not be such, and actually you may be tampering with a situation you know nothing about - are they her pushers? Or is that a love/hate situation that she is the first one to keep alive?

You would find yourself puzzled and not knowing what to do for 2 or even 5 seconds (which is an eternity in a real fight), but most significantly you would find yourself placed in the most unconvenient positions (almost squarely frontal to your adversary, fully exposed to his punches from both arms, at close quarters which enhances the impact of his hits enormously and the amount of severe damage they can do, and with an arm of yours unusable, namely the one that you placed on his neck to find only right then and for the first time that he, simply, does not bend in the least).

almost squarely frontal? what sort of irimi-nages have you been doing?

almost squarely frontal? what sort of irimi-nages have you been doing?

Again, don't ever use iriminage in a real fight. It won't work. The only thing you need to do in order to find out, is to use it in a real situation - were it ever to happen to you: you will find out there, for the first time, that it won't work.

Usually you don't find yourself frontal to your opponent because you do iriminage in the dojo, where uke follows you in the fictional setting of the dojo. But if you iriminage in a real situation, you will find yourself almost (actually i wrote: almost) squarely frontal.

I know that it may sound weird if a person has attemtped an iriminage only in dojos, where it invariably works. But in a real situation, you will find yourself nearly frontal and that it never works unless you're a god at it.

This happens as follows:
1) your foe attacks you, normally with punches in a real situation. Let's imagine he is not totally naive and rather than hooks he goes with straights (way more dangerous than hooks, because their trajectory uses the shortest route to you: a competent attacker uses those only)
2) the first thing you do is to withdraw.
3) he keeps coming, again throwing jabs and rights.
4) you attempt to go lateral, brushing aside one of his incoming punches.
5) as you go lateral, he has already rechambered (this is a thing that you will never learn in a dojo). You have no control on his arm! The way he rechambers is forceful, fast, and very powerful in a real situation.
6) you have now your hand on his neck, to find only then and there that the amount of resistance that the hips and shoulder and neck of a real adversary is fierce and incredibly tough - actually, it cannot be overcome.
7) as you realize he did not bend in the least, you have your arm on his neck unusable.
8) it is at this point that your foe is even more pissed (sorry for the word, i think it is not too foul in English, but since that's not my native language, I am not aware of nuances at times) than before, because he realizes immediately you were attempting something, but did not work.
9) you are now at your 5th second. You are at his side with one of your arms on his neck, and that prevents that arm of yours from being used to protect yourself.
10) now your foe, who has rechambered instantly "long" ago, does something that you don't know about, because you never experience it in a dojo: you find out he is mobile on his hips and feet. Yes! And very much so!
11) your foe turns about 20 degrees towards you in order to hit you in the face. It is at this moment that you're frontal to him. He turns 20 degrees because he sees you at his side, say his right side, and he realizes you are more exposed because one of your arms is on his neck. As he immediately tries to hit you on your face with his left punch, he also turns on his hips, about 20 degrees, because he's throwing the left punch at you. You're now almost frontal, suddenly: a matter of less than a second at times.

You will be devastated because it is at close quarters, it will break your teeth or nose, instantly. His right punch will follow in less than a quarter of a second, and then you're done. The only arm you have free to protect yourself won't be enough to cope with a dual armed foe at that moment.

You may believe me or not. If you believe me, never use iriminage in a real situation.
Of course, you may not believe me - and learn it in another way. the way I did.

Use armlocks instead. You will find out you can still place an armlock even on a rechambered arm, fighting a bit your way because two arms can still control one arm, and once controlled the leverage may bend his body.

Ps just in order to understand better what an armlock works and an iriminage doesn't (btw exactly the same type of suggetions also another member stated here: http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showpo...2&postcount=42 - he suggested armlock and indicated iriminage as the least usable, and I personally find that very well said and evidently derived from experience against attackers who really try to get at you )

In both cases you go lateral. The differences are:

IRIMINAGE:
1) one of your arms is on his neck, totally unusable
2) your other arm is outstretched, dangling at the height of your foes' hips: that's where your arm was supposed to "hold" his wrist - but alas! no wrist there: he rechambered in a fraction of a second, and with a vehement force. And if you don't know this, you may even risk of staying there like a puppy who doesn't know what to do next because you feel puzzled: why this thing that worked marvels on the dojo does utterly nothing now?
3) you're fully exposed, as soon as he turns on his hips, he hits you in a grandiose manner...

ARMLOCK:
1) both your arms are in front of you, readly available to parry whatever
2) even if he rechambered, you can still shove one of your arms (the one that would have been on his neck) into his bent elbow - even better you may throw a punch at him (say an "atemi"...) as you fight your way to penetrate his bent elbow - and this round it will be him to be "puzzled".
3) your other arm can grab his wrist because it is not at his hips height but at his face height. In any case you're not fully exposed, both your arms can still protect you were he fast enough to turn on his hips and throw punches at you.

In both cases it is a dangerous situation (and therefore, one more reason to use stuff that is not too sophisticated in order to minimize chances at least as far as possibile), and it is indeed regrettable that in dojos we are never taught to deal with realistic dynamics, to the extent we may be utterly uncognizant of them.
This may spell disaster if one ever has the misfortune to face a real attacker who is not totally incompetent or drunk.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm not arguing that irimi-nage is a great technique. As I have never been in a real fight, I don't really have a leg to stand on in this sort of discussion. It is just that the irimi-nage that you describe is a bit different to the iriminage that we practice in my dojo. I was just wondering how they ended up almost frontal.

I would imagine the other guy took a step, or sunk into his opposing hip. It wouldn't be hard to end up front to front on someone trying to do irimi. - their first action is basically to try to pluck your punch out of the air and spin with it.

Doesn't really sound much like how I was taught iriminage either. (The most important steps seem to be missing -- getting behind and unbalancing. Why would you try to put your arm on his neck if he's upright? That doesn't work even in the dojo.)

Not that iriminage would be something that I can easily imagine coming to my mind if someone actually attacked me 'for real'. I can well imagine I would find it hard to get into a position to set things up where it was possible to even try to do it. Not sure if that's more me (it's not my best technique) or if most people find it a difficult technique to set up.

Ah, OK, never mind... I think I've figured out which hand you mean where and so on. I got your arms mixed up.

It still doesn't sound like how I was taught (the grabbing the wrist part still doesn't fit, I was taught to try to control much higher up, like elbow. As you point out, trying to grab someone's moving wrist generally doesn't work -- but even if you do manage to grab it it doesn't give you much control, they can still easily counter), but closer to it. At least I see what your hypothetical nage is trying to do.

For me in the dojo if uke keeps trying to counter sometimes it comes together and works, and sometimes I have to give up and try something else (and hopefully I've at least kept myself in a safe spot in the meantime).

As I said, this technique is too difficult for me for it to be something I can imagine trying to do on someone attacking me 'for real'.

Doesn't really sound much like how I was taught iriminage either. (The most important steps seem to be missing -- getting behind and unbalancing. Why would you try to put your arm on his neck if he's upright? That doesn't work even in the dojo.)

Not that iriminage would be something that I can easily imagine coming to my mind if someone actually attacked me 'for real'. I can well imagine I would find it hard to get into a position to set things up where it was possible to even try to do it. Not sure if that's more me (it's not my best technique) or if most people find it a difficult technique to set up.

You are right.
I know this may sound puzzling, saying that you're right just after I have explained why iriminage does not work.

The fact is, the way iriminage is taught is precisely the type of iriminage that will never work.

Unbalancing a big guy throwing punches at your face as he stands with a very good grounding on his feet, who comes forward not like a fury but with steady paces, who uses both arms, and who is vigorous and highly mobile on his feet and hips both (well, like all human beings are) is something that will be fundamentally impossibile.

Unfortunately the highly fictional settings of most dojos where our ukes diligently follow us as we iriminage them, do not reproduce in the least the following things:
1) the stubborn refusal of a real opponent to bend or follow our movements and agendas
2) the truly considerable resistance to any force you may apply and the immediate countereactions.
3) the near-zero availability not to turn on his feet and hips immediately in order to face you again: he will jump, turn, skip, dodge, exert brutal force, dart , escape, slip, bounce back - he will do, in short (and with remarkable speed), a lot of things in a dojo they don't do.

It is not that iriminage would never work: it is that the type of situation where you may place one in a real situation is a rare one.

Given the way most persons are used to iriminage in a dojo, I would recommend never to attempt it in a real situation. Discovering right then that it did not work would be a tough lesson.

In a real situation, if you have done iriminage only against ukes, be very very wary of iriminage.

The ideal situation is that of a guy rushing headlong against you.

If you can iriminage like Seagal does in a few of his videos, then it's safe. But then, Seagal never put his hand on a guys neck in order to accompany him: he knows very well that won't do.
In many dojos I have seen they say to you to grab the neck and gently turning it and placing it on your shoulder "as if it were a baby" - if that is sort of what they taught to you, beware of that "baby"...! It will bite hard in a real fight.

you may likely get killed or maimed my friend: rapists in the scenario you seem to envision (by a lady in distress however I had not that scenario in mind: many men are chivalrous and have romantic ideas about a lady in distress inclusive of a lady bugged by a couple of passerbys - yet most of the times they aren't even ladies...) rarely act alone. It is commendable if you decide to intervene, but please remember that you may have only one shot at it.

Too many aikidokas have misconceptions about how dangerous a real fight can be. If you have already been in a MMA contest or boxing contest and you are aware of how a real fight is, you should know your limits and know beforehand what happens. But if you have fought only against ukes in aikido dojos, please my friend remember that a real fight can be very, very different from what our ukes let us experience.

Keep this in mind: if you know beforehand what happens, you are ready. If you don't, you aren't. You see a guy approaching you and by his eyes you already know (by his eyes ) what he's about to throw at you (with a 60% certainty). If you are not aware of this thing, namely that from eyes you may have glimpses of what's coming and know exactly the instant he is about to start, consider not intervening.

And certainly, never with an iriminage.

An alleged lady's reputation may not be worth your life.
Call 911 immediately instead.

If you're waiting for the other person to act, you're at a significant disadvantage. They're always going to have a fraction of a second on you, and the closer they get and the more blows they can throw out to force you into a certain pattern of response, the more effective that advantage becomes.

Until you force a limited range of options on the other person, until you take some control of the fight, you're trying to swim against the tide - and sooner or later the other person will get lucky.

It's important to recognise that there are differences between sports and less formal types of violence. Beyond just the 'there are no rules' stuff people might give you. There are rules - and people who violate them tend to find life very difficult afterwards.

People have different levels of commitment in real fights. Which determine how seriously they'll attack you.

People start off with different levels of recognition of what's going on. Which determine things like the range, the relative orientation of the actors....

People have different levels of preperation. What weapons they have to hand, what armour they have.

People have different levels of respect for life and the law. Most people balk at inflicting any great degree of violence on another person.

People have different levels of experience with the psychological and physiological effects of their stress response.

Fights between two highly trained, very fit people, without weapons, where they both have similar levels of commitment, where they're both starting off at extreme range knowing what's going to go down.... Look different to real fights.

And while I agree that someone should know what it's like to have someone who wants to hit them coming at them and throwing down - that is a good experience to have - I also think that someone who's stepping into violence outside of the ring should have some more effective gameplan. Most fights I've seen the guy who has had a plan has won. Even if the other guy is in a technical sense far better than him at the actual fighting part. You can be the best fighter in the world, but if someone walks up to you and goes Blam across your throat at point blank, you're screwed.

So if you are going to intervene, have a plan to set the other guy - or guys - up. Don't just think you'll fight them and fall back on your training.

Do you intend to issue them a warning? To be prepared to allow them to back down? Are you legally required to issue them a warning?

Well if you do you have to recognise that you're potentially sacrificing the element of surprise in that. (If you had it to begin with.) Their response to your warning may be to fire first. So if you intend to issue a warning you might want to stand off a little so that the other person has to enter your space. You can generally nail them as they come in.

If you don't intend to issue a warning, you might choose to close as quickly as possible and take the other person down hard. On the reasoning that the last thing you want to end up doing, if you don't practice those kinds of things, is dancing around at the edge of range where sport techniques dominate.

But in taking either approach to the situation. You've socially altered the dynamics of the fight - in a way that is not the case in an MMA or boxing match.

Do you intend to call the police and then intervene? Well if you do that's a valueable bit of help to have on the way. And a useful bargaining chip. "If you stay here to fight with me, the police may get here while we're fighting." But then you've potentially got a rapist or rapists running around with a grudge against you. May not be too smart if your intervening somewhere you go regularly.

How prevalent are firearms in your area? What are the laws governing firearms use? If you point a gun at a rapist and tell him to beat it will you get nicked for brandishing? If you haven't called the police you can probably get away with more in that regard - the rapist is hardly going to call the police and tell them that you waved a gun at them while they were trying to rape someone. Victim might, if they see - if you're in that sort of area.

Is it that important to you to stop a rape five minutes earlier than the police would turn up anyway?

#

There are a lot of variables for this sort of thing. And I know the list I've provided above is not anywhere near exhaustive. But, if you are going to commit to intervening, it might be handy to think in those sort of terms.

I would say, in my experience at least, the vast majority of a real fight is decided well before anyone throws a punch. A lot of them time it's just people making eyes at each other - sizing each other up. Setting up little plans.

Counter intuitive though it might seem - most real fights don't become fights. Fights are two people, who for whatever reason think they're going to win, not noticing the other person has something set up where they should just be calling the whole thing off.

While I will try to avoid a conflict at all costs by using 'verbal judo' I will not run from one either. Remember 'a coward dies a thousand deaths.' While I'M new to Aikido I'M not new to conflict and I agree that a scripted approach to any conflict usually results in a very hard lesson learned.

Or then again, I may likely kill or maim him. It's odd how you think the odds are automatically stacked against someone who intervenes. I'd love to know the logic process that keeps bringing you to this conclusion. The aggressor is human, just like everyone else, including me. He's not a magical boogeyman.

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rapists in the scenario you seem to envision rarely act alone.

Wrong. Most women are raped by a single man, usually someone they know, at work or in the home. If you have sources saying differently I would enjoy seeing them.

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Keep this in mind: if you know beforehand what happens, you are ready.

It's impossible to know beforehand what will happen. "The fight will not be the way you want it to be. The fight will be the way it is. YOU must be flexible enough to adapt."

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You see a guy approaching you and by his eyes you already know (by his eyes ) what he's about to throw at you (with a 60% certainty).

Absolute and unequivocal rubbish. I've indulged in fisticuffs, and you can never tell what's going to happen from looking into your opponent's eyes. It's a fight, not falling in love.

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If you are not aware of this thing, namely that from eyes you may have glimpses of what's coming and know exactly the instant he is about to start, consider not intervening.

"You can tell by the eyes" is nothing more than superstitious nonsense. If there is any science to back it up, I would heartily enjoy seeing it. If you were to look at my eyes, for instance, you would be able to tell absolutely nothing and would totally miss my fists beginning to move.

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An alleged lady's reputation may not be worth your life.

Whether she's a lady or not really doesn't come into it, and rape damages slightly more than someone's reputation. If a life has worth, it's because one acts in such a way that imbues it with value, not because one merely stays alive. I'm all for a bit of prudence, but advocating never intervening is just as bad as advocating always intervening.

I just happened to browse Aiki-web and came across this old topic. I agree with what you said. I would even venture to say that not just Aikido (where Uke actually helps the Nage to complete the throw..kata) but for practical purposes, a real fight regardless of reason, is totally different from inside a dojo. I believe that their is no way to explain it except to experience it. When I was young in HK, different schools of martial arts would meet in roof tops in the evening to fight it out like MMA just so that the students can experience what it is like in a real situation. In my opinion and ONLY my opinion and not intended to offend anyone or any dojo, Aikido as most of us practicing it today would be "killed" in a real fight unless we learn Internal Power and Aiki and the principle of Yin-Yang etc. as O-Sensei envision it. Then and only then can Aikido be what it is supposed to be..... a very effective fighting "peace-warrior" art. Even then, all things being equal, one has to abandon oneself in a real fight to win. It is not easy to do in this day and age regardless of reason to fight.

Or then again, I may likely kill or maim him. It's odd how you think the odds are automatically stacked against someone who intervenes. I'd love to know the logic process that keeps bringing you to this conclusion. The aggressor is human, just like everyone else, including me. He's not a magical boogeyman.

Wrong. Most women are raped by a single man, usually someone they know, at work or in the home. If you have sources saying differently I would enjoy seeing them.

It's impossible to know beforehand what will happen. "The fight will not be the way you want it to be. The fight will be the way it is. YOU must be flexible enough to adapt."

Absolute and unequivocal rubbish. I've indulged in fisticuffs, and you can never tell what's going to happen from looking into your opponent's eyes. It's a fight, not falling in love.

"You can tell by the eyes" is nothing more than superstitious nonsense. If there is any science to back it up, I would heartily enjoy seeing it. If you were to look at my eyes, for instance, you would be able to tell absolutely nothing and would totally miss my fists beginning to move.

Whether she's a lady or not really doesn't come into it, and rape damages slightly more than someone's reputation. If a life has worth, it's because one acts in such a way that imbues it with value, not because one merely stays alive. I'm all for a bit of prudence, but advocating never intervening is just as bad as advocating always intervening.

Ok I will do my best to explain better my points, perhaps I have not been able to do so. However, as long as you want to keep it confrontational with me (you gave this impression using terms like "rubbish") we are on two different agendas then.

I am genuinely interested in conveying my experience and, possibily, in supplying some advice that I hope can be of some practical use, although I know it may be puzzling.
Indeed, before I learned it on my own skin, I deemed it implausible myself until I discovered it was that way - so I really can't blame you (neither I have such intention, for that matter) for your impression.

But really, my friend, I have no intention of being confrontational with you. You're entitled to your own point of view and I don't feel any need to disqualify it in order to improve the standing of mine.

About point 1 - it is true that the aggressor is human, however my idea of a Martial Artist (which I advance no claim to be, but I prefer keeping my eye on that goal) is that of a guy who is martial as long as he keeps it real and artist as long as he can control his mind under fire.

But you wont control your mind if you begin without respect for your opponent - respect meaning: never underestimate any single opponent you meet. Consider all of them potentially dangerous (and, in fact, they can be).

I have seen with my own eyes about 10 years ago the Italian Champion of Karate (cannot remember which federation though) being beaten up by two normal guys who simply were brave enough to hit him with a bottle on his face first. He was rushed to the hospital and not one single chance to hit his aggressors back. A life on the dojo, to end up like that in a real fight...

If you don't fear their competence, fear even more their incompetence.

Persons are all too inclined to figure a fight like something where, since your counterpart is human, you are the actor who is arriving and beating the living daylights out of him like the hero of the day, and the other is the passive and callow taker.
This delusion is what often brings to calamitous results. Harboring a sense of grandiosity in a fight is a formula that most of the times ends up in heavy damages to both parts.

If you engage in a fist fight without boxing gloves, you will inflict to each other terrible wounds with just a few punches. Breaking a lip is a matter of a trivial jab. Splitting one eyebrow is a matter of a trivial hook (I can assure you that when blood starts entering your eyes, and you have no pause between rounds to take care of that, your sight will be impaired and then you're game).
Breaking a cheekbone is a matter of a simple right. You may end easily bleeding profusely and carrying BOTH of you scars for the rest of your lives.

If you enter a fight without figuring out exactly the dangers you may incur into, you're in for bad surprises whose consequences may accompany you for a lifetime.
One of these consequences (and to be sure: I bring the irreparable damages of what I am saying in my own flesh and body, of which I am reminded every single day) is not that of the other guy hurting you - it is, rather, that of you hurting yourself. If you have been in fights, you should know a few ways this may happen..........

As for raping a woman, this has never been a scenario that I envisioned as particularly likely. Or at any rate that's not the typical violent scenarios we may meet in my city. So I cannot elaborate on that and I don't know enough about it. I've never seen such a situation myself - however were I to see one I would call 911 immediately, but I would not intervene feeling righteously entitled to.
My choice. I respect yours and I find it more commendable than mine. But I stick to my own guns here, and as for myself, I would not get into a fight to save the lady and be the knight in shining armour

As for seeing from the eyes of your opponent what happens, indeed you can do that and with an amazing degree of precision. Although I agree that one needs to have a considerable experience. But when you say that it is not "falling in love", I think that you may have misunderstood me. I am not fantasizing, nor I am staring into the eyes of my opponent because i find him handsome... I do that because I can know with precision that whatever he is trying to conceal, if it is going to be leaked, it will be betrayed there.

I don't like saying this here, although a few of the members of this forum know this, but actually I am an ex boxeur. I mean I have been in 36 matches (sorry if those are not the exact English terms, I mean competitions) with 27 wins and I have been knocked down only once. True, that was decades ago, however when I say that you can see from your opponent's eyes what he is going to do, I am not stating it as a fantasy but as an empirically proved fact from the confrontations I had in competitions and in sparring training.
Unfortunately, that is a somewhat "esoteric" knowledge that you won't retain after your initiation: if you quit fighting (which is what I referred to as "initiation") for years, you will lose that thing.

So, if you don't know this thing, namely that the eyes of your opponent can tell you a lot, then my advice stands: if you don't know this thing, please consider not to accept street fights, the fact you have been lucky thus far only means that, well, you have been lucky for a lil while.

Just my advice, but it is not true that it is "rubbish" - for me, it worked and it worked in a manner that I could prove by putting my own safety at stake in competitions and saving myself exactly in that fashion.
I could elaborate more about why it works so well but I don't ant to keep this too long.

You seem to believe that if you watch my eyes you would "miss fists beginning to move" - my friend you must not watch his hands. If you watch his hands, they will end on your face all the same.

Your attention must not be on anything else than either his face or chest.
I knew several guys, beaters more than technicians (uhm, in Italian we say "picchiatore" o "tecnico" but dunno in English), who actually kept their eyes on the chest assuming that "I know his head is on top of it" - they never focused on details about where the hands were: it is not that you follow the hands with your eyes, you must be quick enough to react when the hands enter into your horizon of events, without following them with your eyes. You wait for them, you won't chase them.
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You need not to see his hands, you must know beforehand what's coming next because for every given setting there is only a limited amount of physical possibile combinations coming your way (if he hit you with a jab, 90% of the times you won't need to "watch his fists" in order to know that what will follow is most likely either a second jab and a straight right or just the straight right... and you forestall that by beginning to accommodate that eventuality accordingly before the fist moves) and because you should be aware of your overall environment.
When i was dodging hooks I did not see his fists: I saw his face and I sensed with the corner of my eye "something" coming on my left, I immediately lowered to make it pass, and then I was not seeing his fists in order to know that his second hook was coming for me too (and in fact most of the times it did) so I lowered always twice and there I could hear his right hook swiiiiiish over my head - i did not see his fist. I didn't need to.
At the same time I knew that when i was lowering there was a residual chance of being intercepted by an uppercut so whenever i lowered i kept my gloves closely on my face - I did not try to "watch his hands" - I tried, constantly, to anticipate. To know "beforehand" - that's what I meant, but if a person has never been there perhaps it is difficult to understand this.

And that for the "beforehand" part. It's not magik. It's experience.
I hope this clarifies, I apologize if at times I am not smart enough. I do know that some of my advice is precious because it saved my days and my brain from concussion many many years ago but unfortunately I may be not very good in conveying it. I am sorry that I don't succeed but I can assure you I am trying to share the little I know, the part of whose value I am certain - as for those about whose value I am not certain (which is much wider) or I have not tested, I don't share those.

ps if you have a chance whatch Hagler against Mugabi on youtube. Focus on how orderly and composed Hagler is under fire. Do yo have the impression they are watching each other's hands or their faces?

I have seen with my own eyes about 10 years ago the Italian Champion of Karate (cannot remember which federation though) being beaten up by two normal guys who simply were brave enough to hit him with a bottle on his face first. He was rushed to the hospital and not one single chance to hit his aggressors back. A life on the dojo, to end up like that in a real fight...

What was his name? Where and when did this happen? Not that it matters because this is one example. I could tell numerous stories of martial artists knocking ten bells out of their opponents, it means nothing. One example, no matter how personally significant, means absolutely nothing, it's just not statistically significant. As someone much much smarter than me said, "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'." The stories that we think are so important and so worth telling are in fact worthless. They tell us nothing about what happens to people who intercede in crime. For that, you would have to collate thousands of incidents.

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Persons are all too inclined to figure a fight like something where, since your counterpart is human, you are the actor who is arriving and beating the living daylights out of him like the hero of the day, and the other is the passive and callow taker.

This is a fair point, albeit I have already made it. But the criminal is making exactly the same assumptions. He's living his life thinking he is the main event. I'm not sure anyone over the age of twenty thinks there are such things as good guys and bad guys, so "Sometimes the bad guys win." is a puerile and pretty immature point to be making if you're addressing another adult.

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If you engage in a fist fight without boxing gloves, you will inflict to each other terrible wounds with just a few punches.

Doubtful. The worst I've done is broken a knuckle. Though perhaps we differ on the meaning of the term 'terrible'. Black eyes, split lips, etc are all very minor and par for the course for punches to the face. Unless you're a male model or something, you've got nothing to worry about.

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One of these consequences (and to be sure: I bring the irreparable damages of what I am saying in my own flesh and body, of which I am reminded every single day)

That's unfortunate for you, but here we have the problem. You only see things through the lens of your experiences. You see terrible damage not worth inflicting (on yourself or on your opponent). But just because this happened to you does not mean it's going to happen to everyone else. It's like me popping up on the forum and saying "I once foiled an armed robber with my bare hands and didn't even get scratched! Everybody should do it!" You cannot take specific incidents and generalise them to apply to whole populations, it simply does not work.

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when I say that you can see from your opponent's eyes what he is going to do, I am not stating it as a fantasy but as an empirically proved fact from the confrontations I had in competitions and in sparring training.

But boxing is not a fight. It's a sport. In boxing, fair enough, perhaps you can, perhaps the range of options are so limited that one can learn what the opponent is going to do, though I suspect it would be more to do with noting general upper body movement than the eyes. In a fight, where there are no rules, his eyes will not tell you if he's going to pull a knife or try and club you with a bottle, if he's going to kick you or grab you, bite you or eye gouge you.

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Do yo have the impression they are watching each other's hands or their faces?

My personal impressions of watching a fight mean absolutely nothing. I could watch it on two different days and come to two totally different conclusions depending upon what I ate for lunch. Human observations cannot be trusted, we are renowned for being subjective. We see things not as they are, but as we are.

But boxing is not a fight. It's a sport. In boxing, fair enough, perhaps you can, perhaps the range of options are so limited that one can learn what the opponent is going to do, though I suspect it would be more to do with noting general upper body movement than the eyes. In a fight, where there are no rules, his eyes will not tell you if he's going to pull a knife or try and club you with a bottle, if he's going to kick you or grab you, bite you or eye gouge you.

Unfortunately it seems very difficult to convey this to persons that have not been there. I realize this continuously. It is certainly my fault.

There is, for any given starting setting, only a definite set of following movements that the physical constraints impose. An arm can do only a limited set of movements, and combinations that have been proved as truly effective are routinely taught.

You must learn how to tell them beforehand.

You learn them only by experience, but once you have learned them, if you keep practicing, it is totally irrelevant what the hand is wielding: the physical constraints of a human body are always the same, no matter how furious his movements are or what is on their hands whether a naked or gloved hand or a bottle in it (if they have a gun however, we are on grounds I cannot deal with).

To a jab 90% of the times follows another jab, about 60% of the times a right.

It would be foolish to train in order to defend against an hook after a jab, because the odds you will see an hook coming after a jab are I'd say less than 1%.

It would be even more foolish, and actually truly dangerous, not to anticipate what is more likely to arrive on your face in order to "watch by his hands" what's coming next: I tell you, what is coming next after his jab is his right; and it will land on your face 100% of the times as you watch it arriving, if instead than anticipating it you want to wait in order to actually see it coming!

To an hook follows normally another hook, and yet you must anticipate also the possibility of an uppercut, if you lower to dodge.

If instead you stay there trying to "watch his hands" rather than anticipating what the physical constraints suggest, you will be hit many more times than you should. That's not what a guy who fights competently does: he never tries to see what you do, he is constantly continuously intent on anticipating you.

That is how it works when you fight competently: you anticipate, and at that point experience is all.

This is the first level of your initiation, and will take at least one year (for the most typical combinations at least), and eventually forever.

Then, there is a second stage. His eyes. This is why I said if you don't know this, don't venture into a fight: if you find a competent guy, he will beat you half dead and will turn your face into a mask of blood (ok ok, it's not true: it's my fantasy, ok. I am inventing I have seen movies ok...), depending on how much of a bastard he feels like to be, on how much of a bad day he had, and on how much fun he wants to have with you today...
I am very glad knowing that most of you have never met one.

Yet you realize this eye thing only after you have been sparring daily for at least one year.

I know that you deem boxing a nuisance, but that's because you have never seriously practiced it in order to fight in competitions: how can I tell? because you feel so about it... for no one who has boxed seriously and made competitions would ever think that it's gonna be a "sport" - the injuries and pains you go through will be telling enough to clear your mind of any idea that you may be practicing a "sport" in the same way swimming or horseriding or a picnic - or even aikido, for that matter- could be... your adversary wants your blood, he wants your mental incapacitation and eagerly and actively seeks it. People have died on rings, my friend.

If you're not used to those situations, don't go around chivalrously helping ladies in distress.

Actually, it is even more esoteric than this but only those who have been there may understand me so here I have just no hope that any of you may either understand or believe me.

If you fight daily, you eventually realize how your own postures are in any given emotional setting you experience (and this is why you need time, at least one year of daily sparring: in order to go through the whole gamut).

You must learn how you behave (in a fight) when you feel arrogant or overconfident, how you behave when you felt the hit but you are trying to disguise it, how you felt when he hit your liver squarely, how when he hit your spleen, how when he hit your ears, how when your jaw and how when your chin, how you slightly bent one of your ankles but it was just so slightly that you could tell only by a twitch on your shoulder and not by any sudden difference in height like it is when your ankle actually fails you, how you were trying to conceal you were about to run out of breath, how you behaved when you feared, how when you were about to mount up and to hit more furiously, how your gait was when you felt full of energies and how when you were feeling the first pangs and troubles - you go through the whole gamut of sensations and emotions you can experience while beating each other for good.

Once you have been through this, you have an invaluable asset, a treasure!
A treasure, my friend! A treasure!

By knowing how you behaved (and since you were feeling yourself, you were keenly aware even of the most minimal nuances of your behavior and postures and... even of the look of your own eyes yes! You self perceive yoruself!) you are much, infinitely better equipped to understand how your opponent will behave and to interpret even the slightest changes in his attitudes.
There will be times when you will read him like an open book. Precious!

You have a translitteration scroll. By knowing how you felt and how your body arranged itself accordingly to each given blow and pain and fear and emotion, you are now infinitely better equipped to interpret similar signs in your opponent, signs that you were totally uncognizant of before you went through this ordeal yourself.

You know your opponent by knowing yourself. I really don't know how to convey this. I guess that, sadly, you need to have been there. Aikido does not help you in this, and I always felt this as the most saddening difference when I see how most ukes behave.

It is not that you know your opponent. Actually, you know yourself. And this works wonderfully to know a good 50% more of what's going on in your adversary too - and I cannot tell you what a difference that can make! As much as between life and death.

It is true that persons behave differently, and yet they behave also similarly or we won't have shared DNA along with unique parts: we are all humans, not a few humans others tigers other mosquitoes and a few other dolphins.
What applies for me, has a value also for others.
In a serious fight this asset, this inheritance, may be critical.
Not having it, may spell disaster and death.

For how much a person may pose differently facing one same feeling, between knowing how you yourself did and not knowing it at all, spreads a gulf of differences that is immense and much more telling than the differences that can spread between what separates you and your opponent.

If you don't have this cognition, don't ever venture into a street fight - the fact you don't have these notions, that you don't even suspect how much telling the eyes of your adversary can be and that boxers who watch each other in the face for 15 rounds are not doing that because they are "falling in love" with each others, is not one reason less in order not to venture in a street fight where they may (I quote) «pull a knife or try and club you with a bottle, if he's going to kick you or grab you, bite you or eye gouge you»: it is indeed one reason more in order not to venture there!

Don't push your luck my friends!
For if you don't know this eye thing, and you don't know that you must know the possibile combinations enough to anticipate them, you're pushing your luck even if your fleeting successes in a couple of brawls my be hiding from you this critical factor.

My friends, you are playing with fire! You worry me!
No later than a few days ago we had in this forum a recount of a person who nearly killed someone in a street fight! With one punch, one of those things I warn against and that some deem not so dangerous after all. I have seen plenty of kids in their first boxing months feeling exhalted searching for troubles - we had our special way to fix that, for their own good.

And we read every day of guys dead after a punch, on newspapers.
My friends, don't go in any street fight, don't help damsels in alleged distress because you feel chivalrous. It's a dangerous business.

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Geoff Byers wrote:

My personal impressions of watching a fight mean absolutely nothing. I could watch it on two different days and come to two totally different conclusions depending upon what I ate for lunch. Human observations cannot be trusted, we are renowned for being subjective. We see things not as they are, but as we are.

I think in the video it is clear (ar at least this was my hope) that when people who are competent fighters (I deem Hagler one, and Mugabi was as much as him), they watch each other right in the face, squarely. You never see anybody "watching hands" in orer to know "how he's beginning". That was meant to illustrate that point. .

Eyes won't reveal to you the type of punch or hit he is going to throw at you - for those you need the experience that makes you know which combinations are more likely in any given setting.

What eyes reveal is something infinitely more precious: his emotional and physical feelings and conditions.

Indeed, this is far more useful precisely in a street fight than against a pro - for a guy busy in a street fight has even less self control and self awareness so his eyes leak a lot of information.

You can tell infallibly the exact moment he is going to throw the first strike, a precious couple of seconds before he does so - provided you're used to look your opponents right in their faces when you fight, as you should.

They will tell you when he feels full of energy and about to charge you at full steam.
They will tell you when he is thinking and has not made a decision yet,
They will tell you when he has made a decision - a piece of information that is invaluable even if you don't know the exact details of what he may have decided for you know, now, that he's coming with something and right now.

But you can tell if that decision is about a withdrawal or about attacking and if about attacking his eyes will tell you if it is because he is crazy now, or because he feels confident, or because he feels desperate, or because he feels a rush of energy - all these things are precious in order for you to know whether that's the moment to counterattack or to bunk.

They will tell you when he has been shocked for an istance by one of your hits - there you go a weak spot or an opportunity window, don't stop then, keep hitting him (in the match, in the street you may kill him if you do, so you have to ponder and be used to process all these information in an instant while fighting, like a refined supercomputer in your head with an ultrafast processor quintessentially made for multitasking environments).

They will tell you when he is intimidated.
They will tell you when he is fatigued, you will be able to read the mounting shades of panic in his eyes, with all the varying degrees telling you which stage he is in, and you will know he's almost done even if he still gestures and poses and threats.
They will tell you when he is planning to flee - an unmistakable look.
They will tell you when he is planning a trick - a similar look to the former, slightly different though...

These things you will see and read and are emotional facts that provide precious intelligence - I was not saying you can tell if he hits you with a punch or a bottle (but if he has a bottle nearby, well... you know what's coming next don't you?).

There is no possibility to make a description or a portrait of these features in the eyes of human beings. You only know, if you're used to fight and spar, that they exist and are there to be read, unmistakably - because you have seen them many times and you know what they were associated with and, most of all, because you were aware of your own look and eyes when you felt all those emotions and had all those thoughts in a fight. It's like an actor that is playing with underplay and nuances, only that this is real life and no play.

For reasons I cannot explain, I know what my eyes looked like when i was in any of those conditions, I knew I had no real control on them because it would have implied a degree of micro-micromanagement that the impetus of a fight did not afford me (would be a luxury) - I knew that, and I knew it also if I had no mirror in front of me, but i felt as if i had it to the extent I could tell by his eyes that that slight nuance was the very same I leaked in that type of emotional condition so I knew now what he was feeling.

Precious, my friends - precious!!!

Call it experience, if you prefer; after all it's undoubtedly a part of that baggage.

Your last two message brought me to tears. I sense you are an "old" warrior and guess I am correct. Also, consider sensing his shoulder movement for kicks and his body movement as a whole. I was also a western fencer, if I watched my opponents sword when I was competing in those day, I will be "killed" for sure.

NOTHING AND NO WORDS can replace experience regardless of the reason to get into a real fight. Competitional fights like MMA or boxing etc is very close to a real fight in the streets. However a real fight in the street is a different world all of its own. For starter, it has no referees.

NOT INTENDED TO DISRESPECT OR OFFEND ANYBODY OR ANY DOJO OR MARTIAL ARTS STYLE;

NOTHING AND NO WORDS can replace experience regardless of the reason to get into a real fight.

Exactly.

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An arm can do only a limited set of movements, and combinations that have been proved as truly effective are routinely taught.

Seeing as you like stories so much: You are engaged in a fight. You are a skilled boxer, your opponent is not. He makes a small hand movement, which has no boxing equivalent, and is not a strike or feint. You are looking into his eyes. He strikes at you, and you avoid it easily, because you are a skilled boxer. Except that small hand movement was him drawing a knife. Had it been a punch, you would have dodged it, but with the extra reach afforded by the blade, you have now been stabbed.

You are a skilled boxer. Your opponent squares up to you. His friend comes in beside you and smashes you in the back of the legs with a stool. Had you been using your peripheral vision, instead of looking into his eyes, you would have spotted it.

See how easy it is to tell meaningless stories that apparently support your position but prove nothing?

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if you find a competent guy, he will beat you half dead and will turn your face into a mask of blood

All I see is assumption after assumption. Suppose I am competent, and I beat him half dead? If you pit two men against each other, with all factors equal, then the chance of either of them winning is 50%. Suppose the person intervening bigger, stronger, faster, experienced, and well-trained. Why then does this criminal still have a magical edge over him?

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People have died on rings, my friend.

Did you know that the mortality rate for boxing is lower than for horse racing? Robert Cantu, 1995, Boxing and Medicine. So I'd better not mess with any jockeys, right? Whatever people do, people die doing it. Proves nothing.

You have experience with boxing. Fair enough. You believe this qualifies you to talk about fighting outside of boxing. It does not. Boxing is a sport. It is as far removed from actual fighting as any other sport. I have seen boxers try to box in a fight and get hammered. They either failed to realise the constraints of the sport were no longer there, or did realise it but did not adapt. So when someone did something that had no equivalent in boxing, they were left without the ability to respond.

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No later than a few days ago we had in this forum a recount of a person who nearly killed someone in a street fight! With one punch,

Exactly, and it was a man defending himself who did this. Most strange, when you accord the attacker in such a situation the overwhelming favourite to win. He did the right thing, defended himself, and his attacker was seriously hurt.

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My friends, don't go in any street fight, don't help damsels in alleged distress because you feel chivalrous. It's a dangerous business.

It's not about chivalry. It's about doing the right thing. Morals, principles. If I was a Christian I could point to the Good Samaritan. But that's unfashionable. Better, in fact, to disregard whatever happens to any of your fellow human beings. Never, ever, try to help them. No matter how safe it appears, it is not.

Make as many posts as you want, with as many words as you want, with as many of those words bolded as you want, it does not endow you with knowledge or authority about this subject. You have no proof to back up any of your assertions.

If you're uncomfortable enough to be trying to guess from someone's eyes whether they're going to take a swing at you, pre-empt it and take a step back so they'd have to come to you in order to do so. Heck, take a couple of steps back and get your hands on a weapon of some variety.

It's very easy to tag someone in the dead-space where they're having to come to you but haven't quite started to present an immediate threat yet. There's no reason you should stand there playing "guess the mind-state from the eyes." If you feel that threatened you should be using the time to set yourself up to win a fight if it does happen.